Taking Xbox LIVE Arcade Games to the Next Level
This discussion was on the use of Xbox Live Arcade and how game makers will make big money on their games. The talk started on a lot on different techniques that a game can get from demo to purchase
Acheivements: Some games that you can demo will tell the gamer when they have completed an achievement and if they buy the game, they can be awarded them. Scott Austin from Xbox Live Arcade spoke at this session says this has been very big in sales
Give them enough: Showing numbers of some gamers, Austin spoke that some games gave too much and would have gamers playing demos for hours on end without purchasing the game.
Don’t give it all away: Giving players the game with limited functionality and levels has been a mainstay and continues to help in getting gamers to convert to the full game
Show them enough: With games like frogger, you don’t need to give too much to show gamers you should buy. Other games need to show more and have to work harder to keep a gamer interested and later buy the game.
Austin also discussed numbers that tell you how much gamers are playing on XBLA:
- 110 million XBLA games downloaded
- 160 million gameplay hours
- 360 million gaming sessions
- 90 million acheivements
- 1 billion gamerscore points (achieved just a month ago.)
News about the games being played on XBLA last fiscal year was also discussed at the conference talk.
Top five games with unique gamers:
- Uno
- Bomberman Live
- Street Fighter II
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Feeding Frenzy
Top five games in gameplay hours:
- UNO
- Bomberman Live
- Puzzle Quest
- Worms HD
- Zuma
